Surprise
by Plantress
Summary: Garrus tries to surprise Shepard, in his own special way. Pure FemShepard/Garrus fluff.


A/N: I'm blaming this on a friend of mine because she came up with the basic idea and inspired half the dialog with an RP we did. I seriously just wanted to write something fluffy and sweet for these two. Tried to keep it more of a generic Shepard, but some of the personality of my Lilliana Shepard probably snuck in

Shepard was not surprised to find Garrus away from the control console in the main battery when she walked in. It had been a bit of a shock at first, but she was glad he had figured out that he didn't need to be calibrating that damn gun all the time. The only downside was having to hunt all over the ship for him when she wanted his company, although he had taken a liking to the lounge area, making that her usual first stop when looking for him.

This time, however, she quickly realized that it wouldn't be needed. A glanced showed that he was over at the workbench that he been installed on the right wall. He'd half turned to see her come in and seemed frozen now.

"Shepard." He said by way of greeting. "Hey." Shepard felt her eyes narrow slightly. Although he was trying to keep his voice level, his mandibles were twitching nervously and he had turned slightly to the side to hide whatever he was working on. "Something you needed from me?"

"Only your company," she said lightly as she wandered over to him, trying to see what he was working on. "Unless that's a problem?"

"With your company? Never a problem," was what Garrus said but he was quickly turning to try and keep her away from the workbench. "I'm just in the middle of something, so maybe later? We could take our time, enjoy ourselves…"

"In the middle of what?" she demanded, peering around the Turian. Although he tried to turn to block her view, even his armor wasn't capable of shutting out all of the worktable. The gun lying disassembled across it was not his sniper rifle, as it usually was when she found him fiddling with something beside the Thannix cannons. Instead it was a rather familiar looking assault rifle. "Garrus, is that _my _gun?"

"Umm…" he start to fidget with his claws then sighed. "Yeah, yeah it is."

She took a deep breath. "What are you doing with it?" She crossed her arms and leaned her hip against the workbench, leveling a Look at him. It wasn't that she doubted whatever motivation he had, or his technical skills, but it was _her _gun, dammit! In an irrational way she felt annoyed that anyone had even dared to touch it. _She _was the one who had modified it _she _was the one who had modified it and fiddled with it. For a moment she even felt angry at whoever had _let _him just walk off with it. After she dealt with whatever was going on here, she almost wanted to head down to the cargo bay and give James or Cortez a piece of her mind for just letting someone walk off with _her _gun.

Then logic kicked in and reminded her how incredibly stupid that was. Aside from everything, it was _Garrus _who had made off with her gun. The Commanders boyfriend, something the entire ship seemed to know although she had thought they had been careful of their relationship. They probably thought he was picking it up for her, or even if they knew that she hadn't asked him to get it, they wouldn't think to stop him. She trusted him, sometimes far more than herself, and besides, he knew guns. He wasn't going to do anything to harm it.

Still Garrus looked away from her and seemed to take a deep breath before looking at her. "I'm calibrating it," he said in a more normal voice and half leaned on the workbench as he spoke. "I really didn't like the noise it was making after you smacked that husk with it." He paused and titled his head at her, mandibles twitching a bit. There was a sort of amusement in his voice when he spoke again, but it was strained. "Which, I've been wondering about actually. How is it that a biotic couldn't even throw off one husk and instead was forced to sacrifice a perfectly good gun for the cause? You must be getting rusty, Shepard."

"Or maybe it was because there were over a dozen of them rushing at us and I had just blasted a bunch of them back," Shepard pointed out, trying to ignore the stab of guilt that she hadn't taken care of it sooner. Hackett had wanted to speak with her the moment she returned from the mission and she hadn't had time to see to the rest of her equipment. " I didn't expect one to actually show some brains and jump out of the way. Besides," she added, "I didn't _hit _it, I _blocked _it with my rifle. There really wasn't much of a choice unless, you know, you like not being the only one leaving teeth marks all over me."

"And here I thought you liked being bitten," The said with that same false lightness. His mandibles were still twitching in a pattern that she had learned meant he was nervous and trying to deflect. Maybe she wouldn't have picked up on it if she hadn't been sharing a bed with him, but over the last few weeks she'd been learning a lot of Turian body language.

"Only when it's a hot-shot Turian sniper who's doing the biting," she said, meeting his eyes, "one who hasn't told me why he didn't just _ask _me about the gun or why he was trying to keep it secret." She shook her head. "You know I would have given you the okay if you had just said something. You didn't have to sneak around my back for it."

Garrus dropped his eyes and straightened, mandibles twitching as he shifted on his feet. "Uh…hmm. It was suppose to be a surprise," he admitted at least. "I was hoping to have it done and be able to bring it up to you when I reached the end of my shift." He frowned at the gun for a moment. "…Damn, I should have locked the door. Or asked EDI to warn me you were coming."

"A surprise?" Shepard repeated, trying to process that. "You…wanted to surprise me by fixing my gun?" It was odd. Sweet, but one of the stranger things she had heard from…well anybody.

"Yeah," Garrus said in a flat tone, glancing at her. "I thought it would..help I guess. Spirits, Shepard, you have most of the weight of the galaxy riding on your shoulders. We've all got our responsibilities, but everyone on this ship knows that you're the one everyone is looking to now. I can't do much, but if I can give you one less thing to worry about, I will."

The words struck her, her heart thudding painfully as she tried to find something to say to that. It hadn't escaped her notice that even with his own responsibilities and worries weighing on his shoulder Garrus still seemed to be actively trying to find ways to take care of her or help _her_ instead of himself_. _ No matter how many times she tried to call him out on it he always managed to sidestep the issue.

"Garrus, you know that you don't have to do that."

"Oh, I know I could have asked James to see to it," he said, waving one of his three fingered hands, seeming to purposely misunderstand her. His mandibles flickered out in a smirk. "But we all know that he could never match what I can do. I've never met a gun that I couldn't deal with, and once I'm done with it you won't even think it's the same weapon."

"Yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that," she teased, hoping he didn't pick on how completely and utterly sure of that statement she was. "Even if that does happen to be true, you don't have to do everything yourself. You have a lot on your plate too and I'm not going to add to it." Beyond everything else, Shepard was proud of Garrus for the respect he had earned. It made her heart swell whenever she saw him giving orders and even have the Primarch consider his words.

That pride didn't mean she hadn't noticed how much pressure those new responsibilities put on him. Both of them had left a burning planet behind them to find a solution for a problem that seemed ready to crush them at any moment. Garrus seemed almost overwhelmed by his new role sometimes and she hated the thought that she might be contributing to that weight on his shoulders.

But Garrus just shook his head. "You're _my _girlfriend, Shepard," he said firmly, voice dropping into a serious note. "I want to do this. Nothing to do with you is a burden. It helps remind me what I have to fight for in this mess of a galaxy."

Shepard stared at him, unable to find something coherent to say in the emotions that gripped her. It made her heart _ache _and she was reminded with blinding clarity why she had fallen so hard for him. Fortunately Garrus didn't seem to notice her silence or even expect an answer. Instead he reached up and scratched at the side of his neck nervously.

"Besides I um, I over heard some of the crewmen talking. And uh, the vids agreed that…well…I'm suppose to do something unexpected for you once in a while." That serious register was gone now, replaced by a familiar anxiousness that she knew well. His hand dropped and his claws twitched nervously. "I just…I didn't know what that meant for humans. I mean, if you were Turian I could guess but…" he turned a little and gestured at the disassembled gun. "This, at least, I'm good at. Figured that at least I could give you something to show off."

She couldn't stop the grin or the chuckle that came from her throat. "So love is a well calibrated gun for you?" she said teasingly. He blinked as he processed that. Then he grins.

"Only because it's you, and like what I can do with my guns." There's a suggestive rumble in his voice that just makes her laugh. She shook her head a little, feeling incredibly fond of him at that moment.

"You know that was bad, right?" She could help saying as she reached up to rest a hand against the scarred side of his face. His eyes half closed as he leaned ever so lightly into the touch.

"But you still love it."

"I do," she agreed. "…Thanks Garrus, this was…sweet. And romantic." She chuckled to herself. "Of course it also proves that we're the oddest damn couple in the entire galaxy."

"This coming from the Commander who's pilot is dating the ship," Garrus rumbled sounding amused. "I'm not disagreeing though. We are crazy, the good kind of crazy. And we work. That's the important thing."

"That it is," she agreed, sliding her hand around to the back of his head and pulling it down just a little so she could lean her forehead against his. "And believe me, I wouldn't change anything about us. This, right here, is exactly what I need."


End file.
